"הוא לא בבית עכשיו כי הוא מסתפר."
Translation:He's not at home now because he's getting a haircut.
13 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
So ספר as a root means either 'writing' or 'barber' (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8) though the pronunciations are different. Can be confusing
First of all, as a Hebrew teacher I don't like it when teachers (usually not Israelis) get the students used to translate one root to one word in English. It's wrong. Root is a family of (close) meanings. In this case there are three subcategories of the root:
- סוֹפֵר, סֵפֶר, סיפּוּר; סיפֵּר, סוּפַר...
Which talk about stories and books etc...
- מִסְפָּר, סְפִירָה; סָפַר...
Which talk about counting
- סַפָּר, מִסְפָּרַיִים; סִיפֵּר, הִסְתַפֵּר...
Which talk about haircut.
The changes in the sound of the פ is due to phonetical or morphological changes. (No place to explain...). Not necessarily due to meaning.... Hope I helped
1377
'Getting one's hair cut' is an equivalent in English to 'getting a haircut'. That's why 'he's getting his hair cut' should be an equivalent to 'he's getting a haircut', even though there is no 'he' in the sentence on a literal level. It's an idiomatic expression.
Here's how I remember the consonant sounds (doesn't quite give the right vowel sounds though)... "He's got messed-up hair so he's getting it cut."...Well, it works for me anyway!
מִסְתַּפֵּר mistaper
Present tense / participle, masculine, singular:
I / you m. sg. / he / it get(s) his hair cut
"Go home" versus "I am AT home". It should be this way, isn't it. There is no logic in the English translations. Sometime it is proper English sometimes slang...
